Living In: Bridgewater, Conn.: No Supermarkets, but Natural Beauty to Spare

Visits: 2

Theresa and Richard Miller hadn’t even started house-hunting when they found the home in Bridgewater, Conn., that they moved into last year.

Both were retired — Ms. Miller, 55, from the hospitality industry; Mr. Miller, 58, from the New York City Police Department, where he served in the Emergency Service Unit. (Mr. Miller is the officer who raised the first American flag at ground zero the day after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.) The couple, who volunteer to support veterans and emergency medical workers, were ready for a change, but they worried that the townhome they had bought in nearby Brookfield and lived in for six years wouldn’t sell.

Then a 2,829-square-foot, four-bedroom Cape Cod popped up on Ms. Miller’s computer. Perusing real estate websites was a pastime of hers, and that day she was searching in Bridgewater. “I never thought Bridgewater would be in our budget,” she said, “but this house met all our criteria.”

A few days later, while Mr. Miller was working in their garage, a woman approached and asked if he might want to sell. After showing her around, Ms. Miller explained that they didn’t have a real estate agent. “‘I don’t either,’ she told me,” Ms. Miller said, “‘but I have cash, and I can close tomorrow.’”

That was in March 2017. The Millers sold their house several weeks later and closed on the Bridgewater property in May. They paid $439,000 for the house, which was built in 1992 on four wooded acres.

“Living here is a healing retreat,” Ms. Miller said. “Whenever I cross into Bridgewater on the bridge over Lake Lillinonah, I exhale, and in that moment, I feel like I’m home.”

The long, narrow Lake Lillinonah forms the western border of Bridgewater, a tranquil 6.3-square-mile town at the southwestern tip of Litchfield County. Winding roads cut through forests and rolling hills where horses and cattle graze and stone walls meander. Its quaint town center has several historic buildings, two 19th-century churches, a single store and restaurant, and a small green.

In a recent study, the Yankee Institute for Public Policy ranked Bridgewater as the most fiscally healthy of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities. The town’s approximately 1,660 residents include affluent landowners, families who have farmed there for generations and people who work for both. Curtis Read, the town’s first selectman, estimated that at least a quarter of the residents are second homeowners. “We have some very wealthy people, and we have some people who get assistance from the town,” he said.

Aiming to combat declining enrollment in the schools, parents of school-age children have been working with the town to attract young families. Data gathered by the Connecticut Economic Resource Center showed that, in 2017, two-thirds of the people living in Bridgewater were over 45.

“This is a great place to retire,” Mr. Read said. “But we want more kids.”

Bridgewater is primarily residential, much of it zoned for two-, three- and four-acre lots, with colonials and Cape Cods, ranches and 19th-century antiques. Near the town center, clusters of homes on one-acre lots create a more neighborhood-like feel.

Two state roads — Routes 133 and 67 — intersect at Bridgewater’s only traffic light. Mr. Read said that 38 percent of the town is open space or farmland, some of it maintained by the Nature Conservancy, some by the Bridgewater Land Trust.

Denise Pinter, Bridgewater’s assessor, said the town has nearly 800 single-family houses and one condominium complex with 17 units. There are no multifamily homes, cooperatives or rental buildings.

“We have options from $200,000 to over $4 million,” said Audrey Wilkicki, an agent with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty.

As for inventory, it is low, especially for houses priced under $350,000. “We don’t have a lot that first-time home buyers can afford,” said Roberta Allen, an agent with William Raveis Real Estate. “When those houses come on the market, they go quickly.”

High-end sales are also active, but Ms. Allen described the midrange market — between $750,000 and $1 million — as “languishing.”

According to Connecticut’s SmartMLS, as of Sept. 7 there were 25 single-family houses on the market, from a two-bedroom, 943-square-foot Cape Cod, built in 1856 on a quarter of an acre, listed at $275,000, to a ­­­four-bedroom, ­­­6,043-square-foot ­­­colonial, built in 1998 on 44.18 acres, listed at $2.995 million.

The median sales price for a single-family house during the 12-month period ending Sept. 7 was $507,500, ­­­up from $439,000 during the previous 12 months.

Bridgewater offers many ways for residents to enjoy its natural beauty. Hiking trails crisscross the Nature Conservancy’s 1,900-acre Sunny Valley Preserve. Cyclists can explore 25 miles of town-approved routes. Boaters can access Lake Lillinonah from a recently paved, state-owned launch or, farther north, from a more rustic, residents-only launch in Bridgewater Town Park.

The 35-acre Pratt Pavilion and Recreational Facility is home to ball fields, tennis and pickleball courts, a dog park, playground and pond; it is across from the well-used senior center. Annual town-sponsored events include a fishing derby, tractor parade and holiday tree-lighting celebration.

Last month, residents volunteered at the 67th annual Bridgewater Country Fair, where livestock competitions, tractor pulls, rides and lots of food drew throngs. The fair is the main fund-raiser for the Bridgewater Volunteer Fire Company, the last self-sustaining fire department in Connecticut.

Bridgewater does not have a supermarket, medical office or movie theater; those can be found in neighboring New Milford. The commercial hub is the Bridgewater Village Store and Bistro Bridgewater, housed in an 1899 Victorian building. The store sells baked goods, sandwiches, organic produce and Bridgewater Chocolate. The bistro opened in 2016 after the town repealed its dry status, the last Connecticut town to do so.

Bridgewater is served by Regional School District 12, which also serves the towns of Washington and Roxbury. The district is small, with just 613 students. Each town has its own elementary school; children from Bridgewater attend the Burnham School for kindergarten through fifth grade. The district converges for grades 6 through 12 at Shepaug Valley School, in Washington.

Construction has begun at Shepaug Valley on the new AgSTEM Academy, which will offer classes in agricultural, veterinary and environmental sciences to grades 9 through 12, starting next August.

On the district’s 2017 fourth-grade Smarter Balanced assessments, 82.9 percent met English standards and 85.4 percent met math standards, compared to 54.1 percent and 50 percent statewide. Mean SAT scores for Shepaug Valley’s 2017 graduating class were 559 in evidence-based reading and writing and 547 in math; statewide equivalents were 530 and 512.

Just over 10 miles to Interstate 84, Bridgewater is roughly a half-hour’s drive from Danbury and an hour from Hartford and Stamford. Commuters to Manhattan, 80 miles southwest, can drive 25 miles into New York to catch Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem line at Southeast or Brewster. Rush-hour trains to and from Grand Central take 75 to 93 minutes; monthly fare is $422.

William D. Burnham lived in Bridgewater only until he was 12, but he was so enamored of the place that he bequeathed a hefty sum to the town. Mr. Burnham went to sea at 14 and later became captain of a clipper ship; he earned his fortune as an officer of the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. He died in 1919, just shy of 72. Within a decade, in accordance with his will, the Greek Revival-style Burnham Library and the Burnham School were built side by side, and the Burnham Fund was established to help the town’s low-income residents. All three remain active.

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